Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court in $148 million defamation case

NEW YORK—Rudy Giuliani was found guilty of contempt of court Monday for failing to adequately respond to requests for information while turning over assets to satisfy a lawsuit. $148 million defamation judgment awarded to two Georgia election workers.

Judge Lewis J. Liman ruled after hearing Giuliani testify for a second day at a contempt hearing called after attorneys for poll workers said the former New York City mayor had not adequately complied with requests for evidence in recent months.

Liman said Giuliani “intentionally violated a clear and unambiguous order of this court” when he “missed” the Dec. 20 deadline to turn over evidence that would help the judge decide at a trial later this month whether Giuliani can keep Palm Beach. . Florida, condominium as your residence or you must surrender it because it is considered a vacation home.

Because Giuliani did not reveal the full names of his doctors, a complete list of them or his other professional service providers, the judge said he will conclude at trial that none of them were in Florida or had been changed after September 1. January. 2024. That was the date Giuliani says he established Palm Beach as his permanent residence.

Liman also excluded Giuliani from offering testimony about emails or text messages to establish that his property was in Florida.

The judge said Giuliani presented only a dozen and a half “hand-picked” documents and no phone records, emails or text messages related to his property. He said he may also make inferences during the trial about “gaps” in the evidence that resulted from Giuliani’s failure to turn over materials.

Liman said he would not pass judgment on other possible sanctions.

On Friday, Giuliani testified for about three hours in Liman’s courtroom in Manhattan, but the judge allowed him to finish testifying remotely on Monday for more than two hours from his Palm Beach condo. When the judge issued his oral ruling, Giuliani was no longer present.

Joseph Cammarata, Giuliani’s attorney, noted in a later email that election workers were also not in the courtroom and called the result “not a surprise.”

“This case is about legal warfare and the use of the legal system as a weapon in New York City,” he said.

Cammarata said the state criminal case against President-elect Donald Trump and the civil litigation against Giuliani were “very similar. It’s left-wing Democrats trying to use liberal judges in New York to win when they should lose on the merits.”

At the beginning of the hearing, Giuliani appeared before a background of the American flag, which he said he uses for a show he hosts on the Internet, but the judge told him to change it to a plain background. At one point he also held up his grandfather’s inherited pocket watch and said he was ready to give it up.

Giuliani admitted that he sometimes did not provide everything requested in the case because he believed what was requested was too broad, inappropriate or even a “trap” set by the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

He also said he sometimes had trouble providing information about his assets because of numerous criminal and civil court cases that required him to submit factual information.

Liman called one of Giuliani’s claims “absurd” and said that being suspicious of the intentions of poll workers’ lawyers “was not an excuse to violate court orders.”

Giuliani, 80, said the lawsuits made it “impossible to function officially” 30% to 40% of the time.

After the ruling, the former mayor issued a statement through his publicist saying it was “tragic to see how our justice system has become a total mockery, where we have charades instead of real hearings and trials.”

Lawyers for election workers say Giuliani has shown a “constant pattern of deliberate defiance” of Liman’s October order to give up his assets after he was found responsible in 2023 for defaming his clients for falsely accusing them of ballot tampering during the 2020 presidential election.

They said in court documents that Giuliani has turned around a Mercedes-Benz and his New York apartment, but no paperwork needed to monetize assets. And they said that he had not delivered the watches and sports memorabiliaincluding a Joe DiMaggio jersey, and has not turned over “a single dollar from his non-exempt cash accounts.”

Giuliani said Monday that he was investigating what happened to DiMaggio’s shirt and currently does not know where it is or who has it.

Aaron Nathan, an attorney for the poll workers, declined to comment after Monday’s ruling.

The trial on whether Giuliani must surrender his Florida condo and his World Series rings is scheduled for Jan. 16.

His lawyers have predicted that he will eventually regain custody of his personal belongings on appeal.